We got to the Salmon La Sac Sno-Park around 10am. The main Sno-Park lot had not been plowed that day and was a little deeper than we wanted to venture into so we found parking along 903/Salmon La Sac Rd and walked 2/3 of a mile to the bridge across the Cle Elum river and the start of the un-plowed non-motorized portion of the trial system. The non-motorized trials hat not yet been groomed but a Foresty Ranger we ran into said they were going to start grooming operations within the next week. We continued down the road bed towards the Salmon La Sac trailhead and broke trail on top of an older snowshoe track that was visible but under a good bit of fresh snow. We went another 1/2 mile past the trailhead marker along the Cooper River Trail, had lunch and sat by the river a while before heading back to the car.
We only crossed paths with one other pair of snowshoers and one other snowmobile on the way to the trail head. The Ranger that we talked to on the way out did remind us that if you are going all the way up the Cooper River Trail to Cooper Lake there is a notable avalanche shute with a runout that encompases the Cooper River Trail so be avalanche aware if traveling that area. An alternative with less avalanche exposure would be to snowshoe on NF-46 on the other side of the river to reach the lake but you would have to share the road with snowmobiles.
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